Making more money helps, sure, but if you’re diligent about cutting costs, it’s possible to reach financial freedom on even an average salary.

I want you to meet my friend, John. John is an 81-year-old retired shop teacher. He’s a millionaire — but you’d never know it.

John started life as a carpenter. In his thirties, he went back to school to become a teacher. He spent the next twenty years teaching shop at a junior high school in a poor part of town. He retired to financial freedom at age 58. He never had a huge income and he didn’t inherit a fortune.

So, how’d he get rich? He pinched his pennies and doted on his dollars. John achieved Financial Independence by ruthlessly cutting costs.

John doesn’t live in a mansion. He lives in the same small ranch house he bought for $10,500 in 1962. He paid off his mortgage early, and has now lived in the place for 53 years!

John doesn’t drive a brand-new Mercedes or BMW. He drives a 1998 Chevy minivan he bought for cheap five years ago. It’s ugly, but he doesn’t care. It meets his needs and he has no plans to upgrade.

John doesn’t take lavish vacations. He spends his summers in southeast Alaska on an old 38-foot fishing boat that he bought with cash in 1995. He spends his winters doing volunteer work on farms and ranches in New Zealand.

John doesn’t like to dine in fancy restaurants. He’d rather make his own meals at home. “For me, restaurants are a waste of money,” he says. “I don’t appreciate them.”

Does John sound like a typical millionaire to you? If you were to believe TV, movies, and magazines, you might think most millionaires live like this:

We’re constantly bombarded by messages that wealthy people enjoy lavish lifestyles filled with luxury. From my experience meeting with dozens of millionaires over the past decade, this kind of lifestyle is the exception not the rule.

Today’s “money story” is a guest post from Bob Clyatt, author of the outstanding Work Less, Live More, which is one of my favorite books about financial independence and early retirement. [My review.] It’s an update on what his life has been like since moving to sem-retirement fifteen years ago.

I had the good fortune to start a digital design firm in 1994. I sold it during the dot-com frenzy, leaving me with a bad case of burnout and full retirement accounts. It seemed like the right time to pull the plug, so in 2001 — at the age of 42 — I left full-time work.

I embarked on a self-funded post-career lifestyle that wasn’t quite retirement (at least not in the traditional sense). I chose to do part-time, work-like activity in order to stay challenged and engaged while also closing budget gaps. Five years later, I wrote Work Less, Live More, which popularized the notion of semi-retirement.

So, I guess the big question is: Does semi-retirement work? What has it been like for me and my family? What lessons have I learned since embarking upon this path?

The Way to Semi-Retirement

The quick answer is: Yes, semi-retirement can and does work. The investing approach outlined in Work Less, Live More has sustained our spending since the day my wife and I quit work in early 2001. Our savings have allowed us to have part-time, low-paid (but intrinsically fun and meaningful jobs) at a time when the normal people in those jobs can’t actually make ends meet — and can’t enjoy them as a result.

My wife works ten or twenty hours a week in a large specialty women’s clothing store. Her job allows her to stay connected to her interests in fashion while spending time with a younger generation of women: her co-workers and managers.

Meanwhile, I got to pursue my dream of becoming an artist. I went to art school, then built a sculpture studio. I now show and sell my work everywhere from Hong Kong to Paris, from trendy art fairs in Miami to galleries in Manhattan. [Check out Clyatt’s contemporary sculpture at his website.]

I’ve certainly had fifteen-hour days and eight-hour weeks in semi-retirement, but mostly I putter around in the morning before going to my studio after lunch. I spend an active afternoon sculpting. At night, I’m parked on the couch just like the rest of the country.

Like all artists, I sigh that I don’t have as many sales as I’d hoped after an art fair or gallery show. But then I pinch myself and remember that the art itself is getting better. I remind myself that creating the art is deeply meaningful and our financial needs are still covered by our savings. [Read more…]

In this week’s installment of Get Rich Slowly Theater, we’re going to look at a real-life money boss: Earl Crawley, a parking attendant from Baltimore. Mr. Earl (as he’s known) was profiled on the PBS show MoneyTrack. Here’s a six-minute segment about this super saver:

Mr. Earl has worked as a parking attendant for 44 years — at the same parking lot! He’s never made more than $12 per hour. He’s never earned more than $20,000 in a year, yet he has a net worth over half a million dollars.

Like many successful folks, Earl started working when he was young. At age 13, he got a job at a produce market to help pay the family bills. His mother took most of his income to help make ends meet, leaving her son with just a few cents out of every dollar. This forced saving plan was the start of a life-long habit.

Mr. Earl says he was a slow learner. He wasn’t very good in school. He had dyslexia, so reading was a struggle. Growing up in the 1950s, there weren’t a lot of opportunities for people in situations like his. He knew he was destined for a lifetime of low-wage jobs, so he decided he’d better save what little he earned.

He and his wife raised three children — and sent them to Catholic school instead of public school — despite their meager budget. (Mr. Earl took extra jobs in order to pay tuition.) Meanwhile, he started investing.

Mr. Earl’s investing habit started small. At first, he put his money into savings stamps and savings bonds. He saved what might have seemed like meaningless amounts to other people, starting with pennies and moving up to dollars. For fifteen years, he invested $25 each month into a mutual fund. His balance grew. By the end of the 1970s, his net worth was $25,000.

Eventually, Mr. Earl decided he wanted to “play the stock market” himself. He began buying shares in Blue Chip companies like IBM and Caterpillar and Coca-Cola. He bought just a share or two at a time, but that was enough. (His first purchase was a single share of IBM in 1981.) His secret?

“Instead of taking the dividends and pocketing it, I let it set — or let it reinvest itself — and increase my shares. The more shares I had, the more dividends I had. And eventually, the more money I had down the road.”

How did Earl become so savvy with money? It’s not just because of habits he developed when he was young. You see, his parking lot is in the middle of a financial district. Over time, he picked the brains of the folks who passed his way. He picked up tips on how to save and invest.

“I talked to everybody and listened to the advice everybody gave me,” he says. Because he had trouble reading, he made a point of listening.

Today, Mr. Earl’s stock portfolio is worth more than $500,000. He owns his home free and clear. He has no debt.

Mr. Earl is a prime example of a money boss. He made the most of the cards life dealt him. He found a way to turn a losing hand into a winner. And now he’s paying it forward, teaching others how to save and invest.

So much of financial success involves good habits practiced over long periods of time.

Yes, you can still have a positive impact on your financial future if you’re starting late in life — but if you’re 59 years old and just beginning to think about financial freedom, you have a lot of work to do.

But if you’re 19, you have an extra forty years to set yourself up for financial success. This extra time makes a ginormous difference!

A lot of this is due to the magic of compounding. Over the short term, your investment returns don’t help a whole bunch. But over the long term? Over decades? Wow! Compounding can help you create a truly impressive wealth snowball.

I once received email from a reader named Anders who testified the power of compounding:

I used to save money in funds without knowing more than it gave a better interest than ordinary savings accounts. Then a few years ago I came across a book that explained compound interest and showed graphs of how it works. I was blown away by the idea!

I think, for me, that was the biggest impact on my way of thinking about savings and it got me more interested in the stock market too. So in my opinion, the things people who don’t know too much about savings/investing need to hear is about how compound interest works and how the stock market works.

We’ll leave “how the stock market works” for another day. (If you want to know more right now, check out my articles on stock market returns and how to invest.) Today I want to look at why some folks consider compounding to be the most powerful force in the universe.

The Power of Compounding

On its surface, compounding is innocuous — even boring. How much does it matter if you start saving now? Will it really affect what you can spend in the future?

To illustrate the power of compounding, I spent far too much time playing with spreadsheets. (Seriously. Kim managed to get like three major projects done in the time it took me to generate the following numbers and graphs. But I had more fun.)

Note: All of the numbers that follow are based on certain assumptions. For each of the three asset classes — stocks, bonds, gold — I’m using the long-term average real return: 6.8% for stocks, 2.4% for bonds, and 1.2% for gold. That’s what these investments return over decades (not year to year) after accounting for inflation. However, it’s very important to undertand that average is not normal. Returns can (and do) vary widely from year to year.

First up, here’s a basic look at compounding in action. This table assumes you invested one dollar into each of stocks, bonds, and gold. Based on historical averages, I’ve calculated how much your dollar would have grown to at the end of each year for fifty years:

As you can see, compounding doesn’t really do much during the first few years. After a decade, your $1.00 would nearly double if invested in stocks. (Remember, this is inflation-adjusted. The nominal number would be greater. But this is what your dollar would be worth.) If invested in bonds, that $1.00 would grow to $1.27. And if you invested in gold? That $1.00 would grow to $1.13. (For the record, my research shows that real estate offers long-term returns similar to gold. Others say real estate returns are worse than gold.)

The longer your money remains invested, however, the more powerful compounding becomes. After ten years, your $1.00 in stocks grew to nearly $2.00. Afters sixteen years, it will grow to nearly $3.00. In 20 years, it’ll grow to nearly $4.00. In 24 years, it’ll be worth more than $5.00. From there, the growth becomes even more rapid. By year 40 — which, yes, is a very long time — you’re earning more than a dollar every year. [Read more…]

You already know profit is the lifeblood of every business. It’s like food and water for the human body. Although proper nutrition isn’t the purpose of life, we couldn’t exist without it. Food and water give us strength to do the stuff that matters most. So too, profit isn’t necessarily the purpose of business — but a company can’t survive without it.

Here’s a secret: People need profit too.

In personal finance, “profit” is typically called “savings”. That’s too bad. When people hear about savings, their eyes glaze over and their brains turn to mush. Bor-ing! But if you talk about profit instead, people get jazzed: “Of course, I want to earn a profit! Who wouldn’t?”

Profit is easy to calculate. It’s net income, the difference between what you earn and what you spend. You can compute your profit with this simple formula:

PROFIT = INCOME – EXPENSES

If you earned $4000 last month and spent $3000, you had a profit of $1000. If you earned $4000 and spent $4500, you had a loss of $500.

There are only two ways a business can boost profits, and there are only two ways you can boost personal profitability:

Spend less. A business can increase profits by slashing overhead: finding new suppliers, renting cheaper office space, laying off employees. You can increase your personal profit by spending less on groceries, cutting cable television, or refinancing your mortgage.

Earn more. To generate increased revenue, a business might develop new products or find new ways to market its services. At home, you could make more by working overtime, taking a second job, or selling your motorcycle.

When you earn a profit, you don’t have to worry about how you’ll pay your bills. Profit lets you chip away at the chains of debt. Profit removes the wall of worry and grants you control of your life. Profit frees you to do work that you want instead of being trapped by a job you hate. When you make a profit, you truly become the boss of your own life.

This announcement will seem strange to folks who have been following along since last October. I apologize. However, I just now reclaimed the old subscription management account from the site’s previous owners. That means — in theory — that when I publish this short blurb, up to 120,000 former RSS subscribers will suddenly discover that I’m back and that the site is back.

Plus, if things work correctly, another 28,406 people will get an email tomorrow morning letting them know that GRS has returned from the dead. This announcement is for these former fans — not for the people who have been reading right along.

(There’s a distinct possibility that nobody will see the announcement because I’ve reconnected things incorrectly. If that happens, I’ll have to make fixes then re-announce.)

If you are a former reader who is shocked to see this news in your inbox, welcome back! Look around. I hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see that GRS has awoken from hibernation, and that we’re publishing awesome articles. There’s a lot of maintenance to be done behind the scenes to get the site modernized, but we’re working on it.

As part of this process, the old email system is going away. (It’s been dead for several years, anyhow.) If you’d like to read Get Rich Slowly by email, subscribe to the GRS newsletter here. Every Friday, I send an update profiling three of the week’s best blog articles plus three additional outstanding money-related stories from other sites. I hope the 6692 people who currently subscribe to the newsletter would agree that it’s both useful and fun.

In any event, welcome to all readers — new and old. I’m grateful to have you here.

I’m generally an even-keeled guy. I don’t get worked up about much. I understand that different people have different perspectives, so I try to be respectful when others disagree with me. Having said that, there are indeed certain things that piss me off.

So how much are you supposed to be saving in order to finance 20 to 30 years post-work? The commonly accepted rule of thumb is that you’ll want about 70% of your former annual income — at least — to continue living at or near the style to which you’ve been accustomed.

Let me be blunt: This rule of thumb is asinine.

This “rule” (which is used by most retirement calculators, both on the web and from financial planners) estimates how much money you’ll need by using your income as a starting point. The 70% ratio is commonly used, but plenty of places use 80% or 90%. Regardless the percentage, estimating your retirement spending from your current income is ludicrous. It’s like trying to guess how much fuel you’ll use on a trip to grandmother’s house based on the size of your vehicle’s gas tank!

Say you make $50,000 a year but spend $60,000. In this case, your income understates your lifestyle by $10,000 a year. If you based your retirement needs on your income, you’d be screwed.

On the other hand, if you’re a money boss who saves half what she earns, you’d only spend $25,000 of a $50,000 salary. Basing your retirement needs on your income would cause you to save much more than you need. You’d be working long after the point at which you could retire safely.

Predicting how much much to save for retirement based on income makes zero sense. (Zero!) It’s one of those pervasive financial rules of thumb — such as “buy as much home as you can afford” — that does more harm than good. There’s a real danger that if you heed this advice you won’t have enough saved in retirement. If you’re proactive like many Get Rich Slowly readers are, you run the risk of saving too much, meaning you’ll miss out on using money to enjoy life when you’re younger.

Instead of estimating how much to save for retirement based on your income, it makes far more sense to plan your retirement needs around your spending. Your spending reflects your lifestyle; your income doesn’t.

So, how much do you need to save for retirement? How much will you spend? It depends.

For many people, expenses drop when they stop working. They drive less. The kids are out of the house. The mortgage is gone. And, ironically, they no longer have to save for retirement. Meanwhile, other expenses increase. (Most notably, health care costs tend to balloon as we age.)

That said, it is possible to get a general idea of how much you’ll need in the future. According to the 2016 Retirement Confidence Survey: about 38% spend more in retirement than when they’re working. 21% spend less, and 38% spend the same. Past iterations of this survey have shown that roughly two-thirds of Americans spend the same (or only slightly different amounts) during retirement as they did while working.

Translation: In general, your pre-retirement expenses are an excellent predictor of your post-retirement expenses. That’s why I prefer this rule of thumb: When estimating how much you need to save for retirement, assume you’ll spend about as much in the future as you do now.

Forget the “70% of your income” bullshit when planning for retirement. Use 100% of your current expenses instead.

Footnote
When I originally published this article at Money Boss in July 2016, financial planner Michael Kitces — who has an awesome blog — sent me a note to explain why advisors use the “70% of your income” rule. The answer? “Because it works.”

Generally speaking, the 70% of income replacement ratio works because once you subtract taxes and work-related expenses (plus savings), it’s close to 100% of expenses in most cases. I still think this is a crazy way to come at it — why not just use 100% of expenses? — and that it’s completely off-base for folks with high saving rates. For more on this subject, check out Michael’s article in defense of the 70% replacement ratio.

In 1988’s Cashing In on the American Dream, Paul Terhorst wrote about retiring at age 35. Although his aim was to show readers the path to early retirement, he also sang the praises of temporary retirement — retiring young with the idea that you might go back to work later in life.

The Way to Semi-Retirement

In many ways, Work Less, Live More (published in 2005) reads like an updated (and more detailed) Cashing In on the American Dream. Even the author bios sound similar. Here’s how Clyatt describes his background:

In 2001, after 20 years of sustained high-pressure work, the last seven spent battling in the Internet wars, my wife Wonda and I chucked it in, mothballed our suits, rented a small summer house in Italy, and began our new lives as early retirees.

But early retirement was no paradise for Clyatt and his wife. They were stressed, and their friends were stressed too. Did he really have enough money saved? What about the sluggish stock market? He began to question his assumptions: Had he made a terrible mistake?

Ultimately, he realized the worst-case scenario wasn’t so bad. He probably did have enough to stashed away to sustain his early retirement, but even if he didn’t the downside was that he might have to do a little work. This realization allowed him to embrace the idea of semi-retirement.

“Doing some amount of engaging work offers a comfortable transition between full work mode and full retirement mode,” Clyatt writes. “With a modest income from part-time work, early semi-retirees may not have to face the dramatic downshifting in spending and lifestyle that so often confronts those who live only on savings or pensions.”

Here’s an extended explanation from the book:

Semi-retirement — reclaiming a proper balance between life and work by leaving a full-time job — offers a way out of the madness of overwork. By reducing spending and switching to a pared-back but more satisfying lifestyle, less money goes out the door.

Tapping into accumulated savings in a sensible way provides a steady annual income. Any shortfall can be filled with a modest amount of work, done in an entirely new state of mind: With less need to work for the largest paycheck possible, you can find low-stress work that you truly enjoy, on a schedule that gives you time to breathe.

Clyatt divides Work Less, Live More into eight chapters, each of which explores one of his rules for semi-retirement:

Figure out why you want to do this.

Live below your means.

Put your investing on autopilot.

Take 4% forever.

Stop worrying about taxes.

Do anything you want, but do something.

Don’t blow it.

Make your life matter.

Let’s take a closer look at the semi-retirement approach to creating work-life balance. [Read more…]

Maybe that seems like a strange question. What do goals have to do with getting rich slowly? Everything!Having a personal mission is key to running your life like a business. Your goals help you decide how to spend your time and money.

When I think about the difference between people with purpose and people without, I always think of my friend Paul.

Twenty years ago, as I was swimming in self-induced debt, Paul was living a bare-bones lifestyle that seemed ridiculous to me. He didn’t own a television. He had few books and little furniture. His only indulgence seemed to be a collection of bootleg U2 albums.

“How can you live like this?” I asked him during one visit. “Where’s all of your Stuff?”

He shrugged. “I don’t need a lot of Stuff, J.D. Stuff isn’t important. It gets in the way of the things I really want.”

I didn’t know what he meant. To me, life was all about the Stuff. I had hundreds of CDs and thousands of books. I had a TV, a stereo, a house, and a car. I wanted more.

Paul didn’t have any of these, but he had things I didn’t have. He had happiness. He had freedom. He had money. He had goals. [Read more…]

This guest post from Cody is part of the “money stories” feature at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or failure. These stories feature folks from all stages of financial maturity.

In January, I attended Camp FI in Florida. While most of the attendees were thirty- or forty-somethings pursuing early retirement, one young man stood out. We were all amazed at the presence of Cody Berman, a 21-year-old hustler who defies the Millennial stereotype. Cody works hard, saves tons, and has a vision for his future. I asked if he’d be willing to share his story with GRS readers. Here it is.

From a young age, my parents instilled the value of saving into me. Throughout my early childhood, my father would match my contributions to my savings account dollar for dollar. This made me excited to save birthday money and miscellaneous earnings because the money would double. (Thanks, Dad!)

When I turned eleven, I started my first job working in the snack shack at my uncle’s local disc golf course; I earned five bucks an hour. Throughout middle school and high school, I worked various jobs and saved nearly every penny. At age sixteen, I bought my first car with the money I had accumulated over the years. I still drive that car to this day.

During high school, I took several AP courses and received college credit for them. If I had only known then what I know now, I would have taken nearly every AP course and CLEP exam available. When it came time to select a college, I was torn between Bentley University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I calculated that Bentley would have put me in approximately $80,000 of debt after four years but that I could attend UMass Amherst virtually for free. My frugality won. I chose the latter.

Making the Most out of College

Upon my arrival at UMass Amherst, I joined as many clubs and organizations as possible. Simultaneously, I obtained a job as a teacher’s assistant to financially support myself. After several weeks of attending dozens of meetings for multiple groups, I decided that the Investment Club, Fixed Income Fund, and Finance Society were particularly interesting to me. [J.D.’s notes: Where were clubs like these when I was in college?]

I soon realized that in order to get a leg up on my peers, I needed an internship. I applied to nearly thirty positions and heard back from only one. That summer, I worked in a low-tier operations role at a small branch of a major bank.

I came back sophomore year with increased confidence and a motivation to achieve the best internship possible. This time, I applied to nearly 35 positions and received responses from about 20% of them. Initially, none of my top prospects were interested in me.

Then, one day in early April, I received an email from a private equity company who asked me to come in for an interview. Three interviews later and the position was mine. That summer, I commuted two hours each way to my internship and worked long days. I thought I was on my way to become a rich, successful investment banker. What could be better, right?

Finding Financial Independence

During my junior year, I networked relentlessly and received offers from various top-tier investment firms. I knew that whichever firm I chose to work for following my junior year would probably be the firm I received a full-time offer from. I aimed for high-caliber, high-paying jobs in New York City.

Because of this newly-acquired perspective, I declined all of my high-powered NYC offers and chose to work for a financial firm that valued hard work, respected work-life balance, and compensated for overtime (extremely rare in the finance space). My friends and mentors all thought I was crazy for turning down the ultra-high-paying, high-stress offers, but I knew that I was making the right decision.

Once I discovered the financial independence movement, I was immediately attracted to the idea of a side hustle. I wanted to unlock an alternative income stream to allow me to reach my financial freedom quicker. I took steps to start a t-shirt company and tutoring business, but both failed due to lack of interest and commitment.

Eventually, I collaborated with James, a mechanical engineer friend of mine, and we created the ultimate side hustle: Arsenal Discs. Our company manufactures premium golf discs and equipment for the disc golf sport.

My passion for disc golf, coupled with my business mindset, made me a great fit to run the finance and marketing arms of the business. My business partner James, who loves to design and create, complemented my weaknesses perfectly by taking over the technical, engineering side of the business.

An Alternate Path

I see too many adults miserable in their jobs, complaining about money, and never having the time to do things. I’ve decided that this was not the life I wanted. I want freedom.

This yearning for freedom initially stemmed from my resentment of authority and being forced to perform tasks that I found neither useful or beneficial. Financial freedom grants you autonomy to work on projects that you’re truly passionate about. Once the need for a financial reward is eliminated, then altruism, passion, and authenticity foster motivation, not money.

My goal is to have a deep impact on society and, ultimately, the world. Whether this be through financial consulting, global volunteerism, or content creation, I strive to change others’ lives for the better. I feel that the typical nine-to-five job won’t grant me this satisfaction, and even if it could, I’d like to discover that career from a position of financial independence, not financial need.

I’d also like to help other young adults discover the road of financial freedom.

In my three years since discovering and advocating for the financial independence movement, I’ve had only one friend reach out to me for guidance. Most people in my peer group can’t be bothered with planning for their financial futures. They’re just finishing college. They may have just accepted their first job offer. The last thing they have on their minds is their financial situation ten years from now.

My advice to any college-aged reader out there is simple: Continue living on your college budget, even after you begin your career. As Jim Collins says, you can eventually reach financial independence by following one simple rule: “Save more than you spend and invest the rest”.

A single, twenty-something with no kids can easily live on $20,000 or less per year by making educated financial decisions. With the average graduate salary just topping $50,000 in 2017, a young adult can start with a nearly 60% saving rate! Using Mr. Money Mustache’s shockingly simply math behind early retirement, and assuming income grows at the same rate as expenses, that person could reach financial independence in eleven years. That’s incredible!

Plans for the Future

Luckily, I’m not alone in the path to financial independence.

My girlfriend Lauren, who is frugal by nature, is 100% on-board with my plans. It’s hard to argue against the idea of financial freedom in five years or less! Plus, I have my mom Ruth to thank. She’s turned me on to new blogs, podcasts, and other sources of information to add to my ever-growing repository of skills and lifehacks. She’s been extremely supportive in all of my efforts, whether it’s my studies, new ventures, or financial planning.

I’m a firm believer in creating multiple income streams to diversify risk. At this point, I have my high-paying W2 banking job, my side hustle, and miscellaneous side jobs and weekend jobs earning me income. I plan to further accelerate my wealth accumulation through real estate (e.g. house hacking, live-in flip, etc.). Developing these passive and semi-passive income streams will allow my saving rate to soar.

My hope is to work for less than three years in a traditional nine-to-five job. Instead, I’d rely on my (hopefully) successful side hustles and real estate ventures. Once I reach this point, I can put all of my time into passion projects, volunteerism, and traveling. I’m sure to make some mistakes along the way, but the goal of becoming financially independent at age 25 sounds too good to not pursue.

Nothing that I’m doing involves prodigious intelligence or tremendous abilities. I’m not a genius. I’m just a guy who wants to truly enjoy life and extract as much value out of it as possible. All it takes is a game plan, hustle, and ambition. The rest will follow. It’s never too late to take back control of your life.

Reminder: Please be nice. After twenty years of blogging, I have a thick skin, but it can be scary to put your story out in public for the first time. Remember that this guest author isn’t a professional writer, and is just learning about money like you are.

My name is J.D. Roth. I started Get Rich Slowly in 2006 to document my personal journey as I dug out of debt. Then I shared while I learned to save and invest. Twelve years later, I've managed to reach early retirement! I'm here to help you master your money — and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you get rich slowly. Read more.

If you like this website, you should check out the year-long Get Rich Slowly course. It contains everything I've learned about saving and investing during 12 years of writing about money. Buy it here.

General Disclaimer: Get Rich Slowly is an independent website managed by J.D. Roth, who is not a trained financial expert. His knowledge comes from the school of hard knocks. He does his best to provide accurate, useful info, but makes no guarantee that all readers will achieve the same level of success. If you have questions, consult a trained professional.

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